Improving Large-Scale Assessment in Education

Improving Large-Scale Assessment in Education

Author: Marielle Simon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-08-21

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 113657834X

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Large-scale assessments (LSAs) play a growing role in education policy decisions, accountability, and education planning worldwide. This book focuses on central issues that are key components of successful planning, development and implementation of LSAs. The book’s main distinction is its focus on practice- based, cutting-edge research. This is achieved by having chapters co-authored by world-class researchers in collaboration with measurement practitioners. The result is a how-to book whose language is accessible to practitioners and graduate students as well as academics. No other book so thoroughly covers current issues in the field of large-scale assessment. An introductory chapter is followed by sixteen chapters that each focus on a specific issue. The content is prescriptive and didactic in nature but based on the most recent scientific research. It includes successful experiences, exemplary practices, training modules, interesting breakthroughs or alternatives, and promising innovations regarding large-scale assessments. Finally, it covers meaningful topics that are currently taking center stage such as motivating students, background questionnaires, comparability of different linguistic versions of assessments, and cognitive modeling of learning and assessment.


Instructional Models in Computer-Based Learning Environments

Instructional Models in Computer-Based Learning Environments

Author: Sanne Dijkstra

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 3662028409

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In the last decade there have been rapid developments in the field of computer-based learning environments. A whole new generation of computer-based learning environments has appeared, requiring new approaches to design and development. One main feature of current systems is that they distinguish different knowledge bases that are assumed to be necessary to support learning processes. Current computer-based learning environments often require explicit representations of large bodies of knowledge, including knowledge of instruction. This book focuses on instructional models as explicit, potentially implementable representations of knowledge concerning one or more aspects of instruction. The book has three parts, relating to different aspects of the knowledge that should be made explicit in instructional models: knowledge of instructional planning, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of instructional control. The book is based on a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held at the University of Twente, The Netherlands in July 1991.


A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment

A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment

Author: Joan L. Herman

Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

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Reviews the purposes of assessment, and provides a rationale for the development of alternative forms for measuring student achievement.


Testing, Teaching, and Learning

Testing, Teaching, and Learning

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1999-10-06

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 0309172861

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State education departments and school districts face an important challenge in implementing a new law that requires disadvantaged students to be held to the same standards as other students. The new requirements come from provisions of the 1994 reauthorization of Title I, the largest federal effort in precollegiate education, which provides aid to "level the field" for disadvantaged students. Testing, Teaching, and Learning is written to help states and school districts comply with the new law, offering guidance for designing and implementing assessment and accountability systems. This book examines standards-based education reform and reviews the research on student assessment, focusing on the needs of disadvantaged students covered by Title I. With examples of states and districts that have track records in new systems, the committee develops a practical "decision framework" for education officials. The book explores how best to design assessment and accountability systems that support high levels of student learning and to work toward continuous improvement. Testing, Teaching, and Learning will be an important tool for all involved in educating disadvantaged studentsâ€"state and local administrators and classroom teachers.


Implementing Performance Assessment

Implementing Performance Assessment

Author: Michael B. Kane

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-11-05

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1135452342

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As the commitment to performance assessments as a strategy of reform has increased across the nation, so has the controversy surrounding the purposes, development, implementation, and effects of alternative forms of assessment. One of the first of its kind, this edited volume provides an incisive and comprehensive account of the issues pertaining to performance assessments. The 10 papers comprising the volume were originally written to establish a conceptual framework for a three-year U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement sponsored national study of performance assessments. Written by leading experts in the field, the papers explicate the central issues regarding the development, implementation, and utility of performance assessments. The topics covered by the papers include: * a discussion of contemporary as well as historical events in the performance assessment movement; * technical characteristics of performance assessments, including reliability, validity, generalizability, and calibration; * conceptualization and calculation of the costs of performance assessments; * the implications of performance assessments on students who have traditionally done less well in American schools, including racial and linguistic minorities; * the fit between performance assessments and organizational change in education; and * the utilization of performance assessment as an instrument of state policy. Readers will find the policy and technical issues covered in this volume to be useful from a variety of academic, research, and policy perspectives including conceptualizing and implementing performance assessments.


Science Notebooks

Science Notebooks

Author: Lori Fulton

Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780325056593

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The bestselling first edition of Science Notebooks inspired thousands of teachers to use science notebooks as a powerful way to help students reveal and develop their thinking about scientific concepts, engage in the work of scientists and engineers, and exercise language skills. Lori Fulton and Brian Campbell make the Second Edition even more valuable by showing how science notebooks support implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards as well as the Common Core State Standards for ELA. The authors have also added new material to every chapter, including: strategies to scaffold science notebook instruction how science notebooks help students develop explanations and arguments based on evidence strategies for collecting and analyzing science notebooks for formative assessment new interviews with scientists and engineers that spotlight the use of science notebooks in their work. Student samples and classroom vignettes from a variety of settings illustrate the transformative effect of science notebooks on students' scientific thinking as well as their literacy skills. Download a sample chapter